$9.99 mo. charge from text 56431 Total Brain Quiz - Is a scam.

$9.99 mo. charge from text 56431 Total Brain Quiz - Is a scam.

We all need to ask Sprint to not allow this vendor to participate in their billing plan. Ask yourself - how is Total Brain Quiz getting paid? You pay Sprint, Sprint pays the scammer. My minor son received this text 56431 and was charged $9.99 on our bill.

Re: $9.99 mo. charge from text 56431 Total Brain Quiz - Is a scam.

Hello,

I'm sorry that you were misled by the premium text subscription to "Total Brain Quiz". These type of services are called "Premium text messaging" They bill to the carrier through your text messaging service. Basically you text the "short code" and it subscribes you to the service until you "opt out" by either replying the the text message with "stop" or "Cancel" or contacting your carrier. We do have the abilty to opt you out of these services or to completely block the ability to use short codes. I would be happy to assist you with this issue. Can you send me a private message with your Name and phone number in question so I can investigate this further? I have included a link below with more information about Premium messaging.

$9.99 mo. charge from text 56431 Total Brain Quiz - Is a scam.

Same thing happened to my mother on our family plan. She's 77 years old and barely uses the phone to talk on let alone text. So, she got a text which if she DID NOT reply to would place her on a $9.99/mo subscription. I look at my bill every month and noticed th BS charge. I called Sprint and they promptly waived the charge and blocked these 3rd party billings. A big "Thank You!" to Sprint . It would be nice if the phone companies could ban these 3rd party billers and their not-so-honest ways, but they are required by law to allow the third-party to place these charges on the bill. Simply call Sprint and have them blocked.

Re: $9.99 mo. charge from text 56431 Total Brain Quiz - Is a scam.

I phoned Sprint and had the premium messages "option" disabled [two months ago]. There was meant to be a way to sign into Sprint and turn it off, but when I attempted to do that, the provision for that did not exist [at that time, current status unknown]. With other carriers, you are opted out and have to actively turn it on. With Sprint, you get his vulnerability by default. And as the Carriers get a cut of the cash flow, motivations can be suspect, or at least do not look right when you are opted into this. I read that Sprint was the only carrier defaulting users to opted in.

$9.99 mo. charge from text 56431 Total Brain Quiz - Is a scam.

Lindsay,

I had Sprint block 3rd party texts, but I am still receiving them..........I AM NOT sending the texts in the first place, so why am I recieving them? Sprint will not give me the information needed to investigate who is signing me up for these things and as stated above, the 3rd party blocker is NOT working....plus know I am getting international texts that show up on my bill, but not in my phone? I would call, but I have no patience left for talking to customer service reps at Sprint anymore (they all say different things, put you on hold for extremely long times, hang up on you, etc).

Re: $9.99 mo. charge from text 56431 Total Brain Quiz - Is a scam.

ravendragonwing wrote:

Lindsay,

I had Sprint block 3rd party texts, but I am still receiving them..........I AM NOT sending the texts in the first place, so why am I recieving them? Sprint will not give me the information needed to investigate who is signing me up for these things and as stated above, the 3rd party blocker is NOT working....plus know I am getting international texts that show up on my bill, but not in my phone? I would call, but I have no patience left for talking to customer service reps at Sprint anymore (they all say different things, put you on hold for extremely long times, hang up on you, etc).

So just an FYI peeps, 3rd party blocking doesn't work!!!!

International calls and texts that show up on the bill and not on the phone can be a sign of fraudulent activity on the account if you are sure the device hasn't been used for that. I would recommend calling into Care and having them open up a fraud ticket on your account. I had the serial numbers for the phones on my accounts cloned and they were being used in Mexico. The fraud department looked into it, verified the usage and that I was nowhere near there at the time, and they got it taken care of. Fraud investigations do take some time however, it will not be fixed with that initial call.

Re: $9.99 mo. charge from text 56431 Total Brain Quiz - Is a scam.

not according to an AT&T rep I spoke with, they deal with them all day too. Bare in mind these are not sprint charges nor does sprint initiate them. But can be blocked and now there is a block ALL prem short code providers. Facebook is terrible place to get into these.

$9.99 mo. charge from text 56431 Total Brain Quiz - Is a scam.

Customers phone accounts are not automatically opted into these messages. A growing number of companies and organizations offer opt-in alerts which, like spam, are also received as messages on mobile devices. "Signing up" can be as simple as texting a code to a number to request more information, receive updates, or enter a sweepstakes. The confusion with spam occurs when subscribers either forget they have signed up for alerts or don’t know how to cancel their subscription.

States Verizon:

Verizon Wireless customers must double opt in to premium SMS programs -- meaning when they send a message to a short code, they are asked to confirm, then they are asked again if they are sure they want to opt in. Programs must offer options for customers to opt out (for example, "quit" or "stop"). These are industry guidelines organized by the Mobile Marketing Assn.

"""

This what I read that promted me to close these messages for our 4 phones. Then I found that the link on sprint.com to do this landed on a page with option to opt-out. Then I had to waist time on the phone to get that done.

$9.99 mo. charge from text 56431 Total Brain Quiz - Is a scam.

Verizon wireless has the same rules Sprint does they are allowed by default.

Sprint states the exact same thing, The thing is, The ones cramming are not following "Industry Guidlines"

customers must double opt in to premium SMS programs -- meaning when they send a message to a short code, they are asked to confirm, then they are asked again if they are sure they want to opt in. Programs must offer options for customers to opt out (for example, "quit" or "stop"). These are industry guidelines organized by the Mobile Marketing Assn.